1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, and products for searching for a directory in a file system.
2. Description of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely complicated devices. Today's computers are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware and software components, application programs, operating systems, processors, buses, memory, input/output devices, and so on. As advances in semiconductor processing and computer architecture push the performance of the computer higher and higher, more sophisticated computer software has evolved to take advantage of the higher performance of the hardware, resulting in computer systems today that are much more powerful than just a few years ago.
One of the areas in which progress has been made is in searching for a directory in a file system. As file systems become repositories for more and more computer storage resources, users have increasing difficulty finding the file system locations that they desire. Users may easily generate hundreds or thousands of documents, images, and movies files in a year. To organize these computer storage resources, many users will create a complex hierarchy of directories. This hierarchy may aid in the initial organization of files, but as months and years pass, the complexity of the directory structure actually obscures the information that it was created to hold. For example, a user may intend to organize vacation photos in /Documents/Travel/Vacations. By the time the user wants to add photos of the next vacation, the structure has been forgotten and the new photos are placed in /Documents/Photos/2006. As a result, related items are scattered throughout the file system, and the carefully organized hierarchy is no help when the user attempts to retrieve all the vacation photos.
Within hierarchical file systems, tools like Google Desktop Search™ and Windows Desktop Search™ have tackled the problem of locating particular files. However, they provide little help for the user who is attempting to find where to insert new files into the system. Alternatively, system designers have attempted to provide file system navigation that eliminates or de-emphasizes hierarchical structure. In the Macintosh™ operating system, Spotlight™ and “smart folders” provide a way to access files and directories without ever knowing where in the file system structure they are located. Although these solutions provide methods for recalling existing files, they are inadequate for users trying to find general “areas” or directories containing similar files in the file system.